(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mode-switchable telephone and mode setting and switching methods for the telephone.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In recent years, telephones having an automatic answering/recording function have come into wide use in households. When a telephone subscriber cannot answer an incoming call because he or she is out or for some other reason, the automatic answering/recording function answers the incoming call automatically and informs a caller of the absence of the called subscriber and also records information (a message, for example) received from the caller.
Portable terminals such as portable telephones for use in mobile telecommunication systems are rapidly increasing recently. Particularly, among portable telephones, a simple pager function (simple pager mode) capable of displaying information received from a caller such as a caller's telephone number on a liquid crystal display or the like, and the aforesaid automatic answering/recording function (automatic answering/recording mode) are becoming popular.
What has been required of portable telephones and similar terminals having the above functions is to allow a user to set telephone operating modes such as the automatic answering/recording mode by a simpler operation.
In portable telephones and similar terminals having the automatic answering/recording function or simple pager function, the setting and cancellation of the automatic answering/recording mode is generally performed by predetermined key operations, i.e., by depressing a dedicated function key like an automatic answering/recording on/off key or by successively depressing several keys (for example, a function key and a key assigned to set the automatic answering/recording mode).
In detail, as shown in FIG. 44(a), to set the automatic answering/recording mode, a function key is depressed (step A1), and then a key assigned to set the automatic answering/recording mode is depressed (step A2), whereby the automatic answering/recording mode is set (step A3).
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 44(b), to cancel the automatic answering/recording mode, a function key is depressed (step B1), and then a key assigned to cancel the automatic answering/recording mode is depressed (step B2), whereby the automatic answering/recording mode is canceled (step B3).
However, according to the aforesaid mode setting method, the automatic answering/recording function does not work unless the automatic answering/recording mode is set in advance by a predetermined key operation using a function key and a key assigned to set/cancel the mode as described above. Accordingly, when a user cannot answer an incoming call for some reason and the automatic answering/recording mode has not been set, it becomes impossible to receive a message.
Also, for example, when a terminal receives a call with its volume of ringing tone (hereinafter may be referred to as "ringing tone volume") set to "0" (silent alert mode), the automatic answering/recording function does not work unless the automatic answering/recording mode is set in advance. Accordingly, the user is unaware of the incoming call and fails to answer it.